Like many residents of Bukit Duri, a waterfront shanty town in South Jakarta, Kasmo slaughters chickens for a living. It's not glamorous work: squatting in the semi-darkness plucking bloody guts from a pile of corpses.

But Kasmo, who has lived here for 35 years, says residents send the money back to their villages in Java.

He boasts that there they can afford to build houses that are larger than the Jakarta home of controversial governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, or Ahok as he is better known. "That's what Ahok doesn't understand - how can people living here [in the slums] build beautiful houses in Java?"

Ahok looms large in the lives of the residents of Bukit Dari. The notoriously blunt and ruthlessly efficient governor is seeking to transform the sprawling, chaotic, flood-prone capital into an orderly city resembling Singapore.

In his sights have been so-called "illegal settlements" where the urban poor squat along the city's riverbanks, train tracks, and other areas designated as public space. According to the Jakarta Legal Aid Foundation (LBH) there were 113 evictions in Jakarta in 2015 alone, affecting more than 8000 families.

In February, the former red light district of Kalijodo was virtually razed overnight after Ahok decided he wanted to clean up the so-called den of vice and turn it into a park.

And now 440 households in Bukit Duri have been served with eviction notices, as part of a plan to mitigate flooding by widening the Ciliwung river.

Those facing eviction have been offered low-rent apartments known as rusunawa about 16 kilometres away in East Jakarta. But some have no desire to leave Bukit Duri, where they have lived for decades. It is the hub around which their social life and livelihoods revolve.

"How can we slaughter chickens in an apartment?" Kasmo asks.

Flooding is one of the problems that bedevils Jakarta, a low-lying city that is sinking slowly into the sea. Heavy rain will inevitably bring the capital, where traffic is a nightmare at the best of times, to a grinding halt.

Conservation group WWF has ranked Jakarta among the Asian coastal cities most vulnerable to climate change.

"The wet season in Jakarta has become wetter and therefore the city experiences more flooding, which is compounded by clogged sewage pipes and waterways and the fact that much of the city is at or near sea level," its report, Mega-stress for mega-cities, says.

In January 2013, more than 40 people were killed and 20,000 evacuated when Jakarta experienced its worst flood in years.

Soon after Ahok was sworn in as the city's 16th governor in late 2014, he commenced plans to demolish houses and buildings along the banks of Ciliwung.

This was part of a massive flood-mitigation project to widen and deepen Jakarta's largest river.

"Now, you can see which parts of the capital get inundated?," Ahok was quoted saying in the Jakarta Post in June. "South and East Jakarta. This is because the Ciliwung River overflows from the many people still occupying its banks."

In 2012, the residents of Bukit Duri invited Ahok and Joko Widodo, now the president of Indonesia, to their community house Sanggar Ciliwung.

"Ahok sat there and Jokowi [the president's nickname] sat over there," says activist Sandyawan Sumardi, gesturing to low wooden platforms.

Sandyawan leads a foundation called Ciliwung Merdeka, which has been providing medical services and education to Bukit Duri slum dwellers since a major flood in 2000.

With the assistance of architects and academics, Ciliwung Merdeka presented Ahok and Jokowi with an alternative solution to the city's resettlement plan.

The proposal involved building an elevated village, known as Kampung Susun, on nearby land, which would mean the people were not displaced from their economic and cultural activities. The residents would fund 30 per cent of the cost of construction, the city 50 per cent and private investors 20 per cent.

Jokowi and Ahok appeared to support the concept. "At the time the people were very happy," Sandyawan says.

But later Jokowi and Ahok told them the Public Works Ministry had rejected the social housing plan because it was on the banks of the Ciliwung River.

The people of Bukit Duri are widely portrayed as illegal squatters, who are ungrateful for rejecting relatively luxurious apartments. Sandyawan resents that they have been vilified by the media and the middle class.

"It's too much if they bully us as if we are only garbage of the development of this city," Sandyawan says. "Even the governor said we are reclaiming the river."

In fact many residents do have some ownership documents, including letters issued by the Dutch government prior to Indonesian independence.

But Ahok says these are not land deeds. "Yes, they have documentation, but what sort?" he was quoted saying on beritajakarta.com. "In fact they only have bills of sale for their homes, which were built on state land."

The governor says a map made during the colonial era indicated the Ciliwung river was 60 metres wide. Today it has narrowed to five or 10 metres. "That means they reclaimed land without a permit."

Outside Kasmo's home is a painting of an ugly grey apartment block. Written in capitals below is: Beton bukan solusi!!! (Concrete is not the solution.)

The apartment complex in East Jakarta where they will be relocated is two hours away by bus. The city has said the evictees will not receive compensation because they have been living illegally on state land.

"If we move we have to pay rent for the rest of our lives, whereas here is free," Kasmo says. Living expenses are likely to jump from the equivalent of about $10 to $20 a month to $70 to $100. On top of this, many will lose their source of income in the move.

"They are saying that the people here are irrational," Sandyawan says. "But it is very logical that they refuse."

In May, Bukit Duri residents launched a class action in the Central Jakarta District Court against the city's plan to widen the Ciliwung river.

Lawyer Vera Soemarwi says the city has no more than three years to carry out infrastructure projects on land it does not own. She says the time frame for the flood mitigation project expired on October 5, 2015. "If we win, and as a consequence the Jakarta administration must pay compensation, we will use part of the money to purchase a plot of land still within the Bukit Duri area and the rest of the money to build an elevated village," Soemarwi says.

But a class action could drag on for a year, and the city has vowed to push ahead with the evictions. "They can protest if they want, but give me another solution," Ahok was quoted saying in The Jakarta Post.

Residents have already received two of three eviction warning letters.

Sandyawan says they feel betrayed because the court case is still underway. But there are some, he says, who have already dismantled their houses because of the fear of demolition.

On Wednesday, Kasmo and other residents met Hendrawan Supratikno, a senior legislator from Jokowi's PDIP political party.

He was sympathetic to their plight but pointed out they would be eligible for a government health insurance scheme, education subsidies for their children and other facilities in the new apartments.

"This river normalisation program is a national program and it has to be carried out," Hendrawan says. "On the other hand we don't want to and must not kill people's source of income."

He said he had asked the Jakarta administration to look for areas where the residents could continue to work, such as a space to slaughter chickens, near the new apartments in East Jakarta. "I think we must find a win-win solution."

Meanwhile, the demolition of empty homes in Bukit Duri is expected to start next week.

With Karuni Rompies

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